Who is Jesus #5 - Jesus Seeks Us
Message Description
Senior Pastor Dr. Kurt Bjorklund concludes the message series "Who is Jesus?".
Message Transcript
Good morning. It's great to be together. Let's pray. God, as we're gathered this weekend, I ask that you would speak to each of us. That my words would reflect your words, in content and in tone and in emphasis. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
So today we're concluding this five-week series that we've called “Who is Jesus?”, and our idea was basically, as we head toward Christmas, to look at some of the pictures in the New Testament of who Jesus is, some of the classic ideas that form the doctrine of Jesus Christ, and then lead right into Christmas with our message in music and caroling service, the Christmas Eve services, and that it would help those of us who are part of Orchard Hill, just to have a fresh appreciation for who Jesus is.
But I have a guess and that is that inside and outside the church, that for many people the thought of who Jesus is, is not really that compelling. Certainly, outside the church you could make the argument that says people see Jesus as a religious teacher, telling them what they should do or not do. And it feels like more rules and restrictions and it isn't necessarily compelling. But sometimes even within the church, there's a sense in which Jesus seems to many to be that same basic idea as someone who gives them rules and restrictions to follow, and judgment if they don't hit the mark. In fact, for many people, the idea of Jesus is little more than kind of this religious idea that says try harder to please Jesus and maybe someday you will be accepted into heaven, whatever that is like. And that's pretty non compelling in terms of who Jesus is.
Years ago, there was a song that came out over 50 years ago. It was by John Lennon and it's called Imagine. And it's one of those songs that has transcended generations, because probably most of you know this song or have heard it. And the song addresses a dream in a sense that John Lennon had about the way things should be. Just listen to the words for a moment:
Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try.
No hell below us, above us only sky.
Imagine all the people living for today.
And then he says, come on, you guys are just gonna leave me hanging?
Yoo hoo!
Yeah. Okay, so now you know kind of where we're going here.
Imagine there's no countries, this isn't hard to do.
Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too.
Imagine all the people, living life in peace.
Yoo hoo!
Thank you. Thank you. Then the chorus:
You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.
I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will be as one.
Doesn't do it there.
Imagine there's no possessions, I wonder if you can.
No need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man.
Imagine all the people, sharing all the world.
Yoo hoo!
Thank you. Thank you. And then he comes back, and he does the whole dreaming thing again:
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.
I hope someday you'll join us, and the world can live as one.
Now John Lennon's song, one of the reasons I think it's hit the consciousness over generations is because there is something compelling about his dream, so to speak. He says, imagine that there's not greed or hunger, that people are fed. Imagine there's no war. Imagine a world in which people are not fraught with disagreements. If we were to just bring it to our current world. Imagine a world where a healthcare president, CEO isn't gunned down because people are so distraught with the denial of coverage and the inequity of our world. Like there's something compelling.
But his answers are pretty off. Imagine there's no heaven, no hell. Imagine there's no religion, there's no countries, there's no possessions. He says the way forward is to get rid of everything. Because the compelling or the non-compelling version that he has of Jesus in his mind is that Jesus actually works against the idea of people being together. And so, what I would like to do today is point you to the scripture that you heard very beautifully read. From Mark, chapter 1, verse 14 & 15, and talk about what Jesus came to do.
And this is in some ways a little surprising, even if you've been around church, because so often what we say is Jesus came to save sinners, and he did. But the way that we often hear that is, so be good and maybe one day you can share in this eternal goodness of Jesus. But now it's just about saving us from sin. And he did, but his picture is bigger. And so I'd like to just look at five different phrases that are in these verses that paint a picture of who Jesus is, and what he came to do. And the first phrase is just this little phrase that after John had gotten out of prison, we get this idea that says Jesus went “Into Galilee”.
And sometimes when we get these little markers about places in the text, they feel like a throwaway line. Like Galilee, it's a region. It's like one region, another region. We have regions everywhere. What difference does it make that he went into Galilee? Well, here's where Galilee is on a map. Galilee is right around the Sea of Galilee, hence the name. And even seeing this doesn't really tell you much because you say, well, there's Samaria, there's the Decapolis, there's Judea, there's Galilee. Like, so what that Jesus went throughout Galilee talking about the Good News? What difference does that make?
Here's what I think is going on when he says this, and that is Galilee, if you could have a map that was a little broader, you would see that this was an important area, because people would come from the east and the west, the north and the south, to cross for all the places of the world. And this was not a predominantly Jewish area. So, remember Jesus, Jewish Messiah for the Jewish people, they were thinking, he's coming to extend our people. But he went into Galilee because Jesus’ message isn't just for the Jewish people. It's for everybody. It's not just for one group of people, it's for the world. In other words, Jesus just in how he positioned himself, put himself as one who is accessible to everyone, one who is saying, my message is for the world. Sometimes people of faith get the mindset that says Jesus is just for us. But Jesus heart has always been to say, I want to be for everybody, for anybody to come.
So, Jesus went into Galilee, and then we're told the second phrase, “Proclaiming the Good News of God”. And when we hear that word, Good News, some versions will say the Gospel. We hear it as kind of a churchy word maybe, and that's understandable, but the word Good News literally had a connotation of victory, meaning that this was like saying there's an official announcement that when Jesus comes proclaiming the Good News, it's saying, there is a victory that we have. And it was a word that was used for a herald coming into a community and announcing that a war had been won or that a king's throne had an air that the future of the people was secure.
And so, Jesus’ announcement isn't come and change your behavior, at least in this moment, so that you can share in my future. It was, I'm telling you about a victory that has been won on your behalf. You have this already, is what he was saying. And so often again, the way people hear the account of Christianity is in a negative way. Stories abound where somebody who claims to be a follower of Jesus starts to kind of push their idea of how everyone should believe and behave exactly as they do in order to experience the Good News. And I'm not saying that belief and behavior don't matter, but that is not the Good News of God. Be like me because I'm like Jesus somehow, as much as it is saying there's a victory that has been won.
And so many statistics talk about the decline of the church in our world today, especially in America. And we aren't experiencing that at Orchard Hill, but the church nationally is experiencing that, where fewer and fewer people are partaking in church. And again, part of the reason I believe that that's happening is because the version that many people have of Jesus is not one who brings Good News, but it's of one who brings a message that is restricting and repressive and difficult, rather than one who is compelling.
I have just a list of some of the names and titles of Jesus, and I purposely don't put these on the screen, because I don't want you necessarily to try to follow along or think about each one as much as just to be caught up into the sheer breath of the number and descriptions of who Jesus is. Let's listen to some of these names: The Lord Jesus Christ, The Lord, My Lord, Lord Jesus, The Lord Our Righteousness, Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, Christ, The Messiah, The Anointed One, Jesus Christ, The Son of David, Son of Abraham, A Shoot, A Root of Jesse, The Righteous Branch, A Root of David, A Root of The Offspring of David, Joseph's Son, The Carpenter's Son, A Carpenter, Mary's Son, Son of God, Son of the Most High God, Son of the Living God, Son of the Blessed One, My Son, the One and Only Son, The Only Son, Son of Man, Bread of Life, Light of the World, True Light, Gate, The Good Shepherd, The Great Shepherd, The Chief Shepherd, The Resurrection, The Way, The Truth, The Life, Wonderful Counselor, A Vine, A True Vine, The Lord of the Sabbath, The Master, The Teacher, Emmanuel, Son of the Most High, Holy One, Jesus of Nazareth, Rabbi, King of Israel, Rabboni, A Servant, Lamb of God, Prophet, Prince of Peace, King, Ruler Over Israel, King of the Jews, The Deliverer, Ruler of The Kings of the Earth, Ruler of God's Creation, King of The Ages, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, The High Priest, The Great High Priest, The Great Priest, The Priest, The Mediator, Savior of the World, Savior, Our Passover Lamb, The Apostle, The Image of God, The Image of The Invisible God, The Firstborn, The Firstborn Over All Creation, An Heir, The Beginning, The End, God Everlasting Father, Holy and Righteous One, Righteous One, Word, The Word of Life, The Advocate, The Word of God, The Faithful Witness, The Alpha, The Omega, The First, The Last, The Faithful and True, Lion of the Tribe of Judah, The Lord, The Author, The Prince, The Author and Perfecter of Our Faith, The Bridegroom, The Head of The Church, The Stone, The Cornerstone, The Chief Cornerstone, The Overseer. And that's just a partial list.
Now, why do I read that? Because somewhere in there, there's a compelling picture of Jesus that is much greater than many of us tend to think. He came into Galilee, into the whole world, proclaiming the Good News of God, the Good News that comes from God. And then we're told that the “time has come” near. And this is a phrase that, again, you read this and you're like, well, what does this mean exactly when he says, the time has come near?
Somebody had sent me something recently that talked about the fulfillment of prophecy in Jesus. And in the Old Testament, there are over 60 major prophecies about Jesus, like when he would be born and what he's about. And one person, a man named Robert Newman, did a statistical analysis about what it would mean for just eight of those prophecies to come true. He ran out of, out of mental capacity to go beyond that. So he said, let me just figure out if eight of these prophecies were true, what would be the statistical probability? So we're talking about, you know, a couple hundred years ago, saying on this particular time, in this place, a baby's going to be born ,and the baby will be named Emmanuel. So, like, Emmanuel, like, can you predict when a baby will be born and what their name will be ahead of time? It's really hard to do that, let alone hundreds of years.
So that kind of a thing. Here's what he concluded. He concluded that there would be a 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000 chance that all eight of those prophecies would be fulfilled. So there's the number. That's a lot of zeros, one in 100 quadrillion. And just to put this in perspective, what Robert Newman said, just so we could understand it, he said this would be like covering the state of Texas 2 feet high in silver coins, like quarters, and saying, now go and get one of those coins at random and say, that is the statistical probability of just eight of these prophecies being fulfilled. Now, again, why do I tell you this? Because the certainty of Jesus is seen in the way that the time has been fulfilled.
And it has always been God's plan that he would not just simply leave people to a mechanical, deistic universe that just kind of runs itself, but that Jesus would come. And that leads us to this next phrase where he says, “The Kingdom [of God is at hand, or it's near it] has come”.
Now, the kingdom is an idea that can be a bit foreign to us because we don't live in a kingdom. And a kingdom is where what the king says goes. Dallas Willard, writing a couple generations ago now, a couple decades ago, said this. He said:
“The kingdom is where the range of your effective will is seen.”
Maybe to put this another way, when my kids were little, they shared a room, a couple of our sons. And when they would get irritated with one another, they would put a line down the middle of the room. Any of you ever do this? And they would say, “This is (they didn't use these words; this is my kingdom. That's your kingdom. On this side of the room, it's the way I want it. On that side of the room, it's the way you want it. But this side, this is my kingdom.” And then they would get into it a little bit and saying, “If you come to my kingdom, your kingdom's gonna come.” Because they were intent on saying, this will be how I want it.
Now, in order to understand this biblically, we need to go back to the beginning in some ways, because in Genesis 1, God creates the heaven and the earth. And the phrase that's used over and over again in Genesis 1 and 2 is, “it was good”. In other words, God created the universe, and he kept saying, and the way I created it, it is good. And then he says for the first time at one point, when he says something isn't good, he says, it's not good for a man to be alone. So he creates man and woman. And then again he says, “and it is good”. And then you get into Genesis 3 and you have what theologians have called The Fall, where you have Adam and Eve eating from fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden, and because of that, sin comes into the world. And do you know what happens? The Kingdom of God, the range of his effective will is disturbed. Now, how you want to think about that, say, that, is difficult, because God is ultimately sovereign, so his Kingdom is always in existence. But clearly sin was a distortion of his Kingdom.
And Jesus comes, because the time has been fulfilled into the whole world, into Galilee, and says, do you want to know what the Good News is? Do you want to know what the victory is? The Kingdom of God has come. Now, let me show you just a few ways that this word is used in the New Testament, because this will help us understand something about how to see the Kingdom today. In Matthew chapter 6, we see one of the examples of the Kingdom. This is Matthew 6, 32 & 33. It says this:
“For the pagans, run after all these things.”
What are all these things? Food, clothing, necessities. Says, so people who don't know God, this is what their lives are about. It's about getting enough stuff, having enough stuff, taking care of their life. He says, but:
“...your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all of these things will be added unto you.”
Do you want to know how to make sure that your life has what it is that you really need? He says, seek the kingdom where God's ways are first in your life, and his righteousness, and then you won't have to worry about these things. But otherwise, what you may do is you may spend your life saying, I need to figure out what to eat, what to drink, what to wear, where to work, how to have more status and significance in this world, and you are seeking it in the wrong place. So the Kingdom of God is something that you seek, and then it brings the things that you need to your life.
In Luke chapter 17, verse 20, we see another example of the Kingdom of God. And here we have some of the disciples coming, basically, and the Pharisees coming to Jesus and asking questions in this context. And here's what it says, verse 20 of Luke 17:
“Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, ‘The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is’ or ‘There it is’, because the kingdom of God is in your midst.”
So what does he say? He says, you may think that you'll be able to say, oh, there's the Kingdom, or there's the Kingdom. But he says, no, no, no. You won't be able to see the Kingdom entirely, because it's in your midst. The Kingdom of God exists in the people of God in such a way that it won't be observable to many people in the world. In other words, you can participate in this Kingdom now, but it won't be the place where everything is exactly as the king says, but it'll start to be true in the people of God in such a way that you'll say, there's something different about these people in the way that they live.
In Matthew 18 we have another example of the Kingdom. Here's what we see. Matthew 18, verses 1 and following it says:
“At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, ‘Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ He called the little children to him, and he placed a child among them. And he said, ‘Truly, I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’”
See, in our world, so much is about positioning ourselves to be seen as being great, or just see ourselves as being significant. And Jesus says, if you want to know who's going to be great in the Kingdom, understand that the Kingdom is like a little child. There's a belief and an excitement and a simplicity to it that is significant for how you see the Kingdom, how you see yourself. It's not one of pretense and pride.
And then in Matthew 22, we see this about the Kingdom. Jesus was talking about a feast and a wedding feast and an invitation. It says, Jesus spoke to them again in a parable and said:
“The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son.”
And if you go and you read through this passage, what happens is, as he prepares the guest list and invites people, they don't, many people don't come. And he says, I want you to go even further, and I want you to invite everybody to come and be part of the Kingdom, or of this feast. And there's certainly a significance of this pointing to the joy of the Kingdom, but it's also, again, about inclusion of the least and the lonely and people that many others would not include. In other words, it's a dream where the world is not filled with stratification and the haves and the have nots. And then Romans, chapter 14, verse 17, says it this way. It says:
“For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”
So the Kingdom of God is not about the rules of religion that you keep, but it's about righteousness. It's about peace. It's about joy.
This last week I was recording some of the five good minutes that will air in January, and it's going to be about Ecclesiastes. And so I was was reading and considering Ecclesiastes in order to record some of these. And Ecclesiastes is kind of a downer of a book, if you've ever read the book. It's basically all the stuff you pursue in this life, it's meaningless, meaningless. And you're going to die. Everybody dies. And so don't get caught up in your life. And you're like, wow, thanks. But in the middle of the book, there are these little nuggets of joy. In fact, at one point he says this. He says, Go and eat and drink and enjoy your life.
You see, the Kingdom of God means, in part, enjoying the life God has given you because it is a gift. That's why he says joy here and righteousness and peace. He's saying, when you live in, in concert with God, then your life is actually a gift that you enjoy and you embrace along the way.
And then there's one more phrase. So he goes into Galilee. It's for everybody. It's the Good News of God that comes from God. It's, the time has come, there's the Kingdom of God. And then he says this, “Repent & Believe the Good News”.
Now, sometimes people's idea of faith is to say, just believe, and then you get to share. But notice here he says, repent and believe. Repentance has the idea of changing the way that we do things to aligning our lives with something. So, to repent and believe means that what you're doing is you're saying, it's that Kingdom that I want to be apart of, and I'm going to arrange my life around being a part of that Kingdom. In other words, what God does through Jesus here is he says, I want you to be a part of this alternate Kingdom, the Kingdom that is coming, but is already here.
Imagine just for a moment, what it would be like maybe with your families over the holidays, where maybe there's some conflict if, if you were the one who brought humility and joy and peace to the gatherings. Imagine if you were the one who brought grace to match the harshness in the workplace. Imagine if you brought forgiveness to where there’s been offense. Imagine if addiction was brought to light and dealt with in such a way that there was hope. Imagine if a small group said, we're going to care for and do life together with one another in such a way, that no one's alone. Imagine using resources so that people without had opportunities, not just for the Gospel, but to have their needs met.
In fact, as a church, one of the things that we want to celebrate at the end of this year is last year, as part of our It's A Party initiative, we gave money to a church partner of ours in Haiti, and they've been able to build, I think we have a picture here, a new facility, which doesn't appear very grand here, but in Haitian standards, this is an amazing facility that will actually serve as a Bible college for people to learn and go into villages in some of the poorest parts of our hemisphere, and have Gospel proclaiming churches that are very similar to what happens here week in and week out. In other words, that's part of saying, I am using what God has given me to extend the Kingdom to others.
Now, Jesus’ strategy appears to me when he says, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, Kingdom of God. And he says, repent and believe the Good News. What he's doing is he's saying, my Kingdom is like a beachhead right now. It's not fully seen, but it is seen, and it is the beginning of what will be. And when Jesus says to his disciples the idea of going to the remote parts of the earth, to Judea and Samaria, and the remote parts of the earth, what he's doing is he's saying, I want you to make your life about this Kingdom as well. And there's a lot of ways that we could talk about doing this. One of them is clearly just to say, as a person of faith, if you're a person of faith, to say, as I align my life, as I repent and believe the Kingdom where I am, what I'm doing, is I'm pointing other people to this king and to this Kingdom. But there's also some really tangible things we can do.
As a church, you've heard already today about how we use Christmas in our culture, in our place, to say, this is a great time to invite people to come. And Christmas Eve is one of those times with all the different opportunities where we say, this is a time where people are more receptive to church than probably any other time, than their own marriages and their own funerals and some of those moments, and so this is a time to say, I am willing to just maybe invite some people and say, come and see. And so this is an opportunity this year, say, who has God put in your life that you could invite?
One of the other things we do here every year toward the end of the year is we have an initiative that's around funding for the church. And I know that even to talk about money sometimes has people feeling a little bit like, oh, you're going to talk about money. But one of the reasons we do this is one, it's been helpful to the church. It's how we've been able to launch campuses, finish building projects, extend the church, because the money that people have given has allowed us to support ministry, to do things like Haiti, to do things around here. But as I've been part of this church now for 20 year end givings, 20 Christmases, what I have learned is that this is such an important thing, not just because of money, but because of what it does in each of us.
You see, when I first started in ministry, I was a little nervous to talk about money, because it's like, nobody likes to talk about money. But you know, what I've learned is money is about our heart, and it's discipleship. Jesus says this, by the way. In a Sermon on the Mount, what does he say? Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So you cannot be in many ways a disciple who says, I love my money more than I love Jesus Christ. And so this is a significant issue. And you may say, look, I'm in high school, I'm in middle school. You know, my money. But what does Jesus say? Seek first his Kingdom, and all these things will be added unto you. As you say, I will trust God. God works in our lives in different ways.
And so this year, just like every year, we have a Year End initiative. There's some information at the welcome desk at the information center at each of our campuses that talk about each campus and some of those opportunities. But even more than the projects or anything like that, this is just a moment to say, am I in on the Kingdom? Am I in on the Kingdom?
And for some of us, we may say, you know what? I've done everything I intend to do this year. And we say, thank you, Praise God. Then maybe you just take a card, put a zero on it, and say, hey, I've done everything I intend to do. For some of us, we get to this point of the year, and we might realize that we haven't done everything that we could or should have done during the year, wanted to do. And so this is a chance to make up that difference.
And then for some of us, maybe God's blessed us, and we're in a place where we've done what we had intended to do, but there's an opportunity to say we could even participate at a greater level, because the Kingdom of God is advancing in this place and in substantial ways.
One of the things I often say this time of year if I talk about this is, you know, if you're here and you're saying, well, you know, I got some things I don't really love about Orchard Hill. You know, I'm not sure if I'm at Orchard Hill. My reaction is, that's fine. Can I tell you a secret? There are some things I don't love about Orchard Hill. And I just say that because even in the chair that I sit in, I don't get to control everything. And so there are some things I'm like, I would have done that differently. Okay, I won't tell you what they are right now, but what happens, and the reason I say this is because, because I've watched this over the years. And sometimes what people will do is they'll say, I don't love this, so I'm not going to give. To which I say, no problem. Pick something else, pray about it, and be a steward of the resources God has given you for Kingdom purposes somewhere else then. And allow it to be a spiritual process for you that has nothing to do with Orchard Hill. Because money shows our heart. And if we're about our kingdom instead of God's Kingdom, one of the places that it will be most evident is in how we handle our money.
You know, Jesus came, yes, to save sinners. That if we believe that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, we can have eternal life. Absolutely. But he also came to initiate a Kingdom, to establish a beachhead, and to invite people to say, will you orient your life around my Kingdom, not just yours? Because this is what points people to something even greater. And it's an invitation to each of us, wherever we are. And by the way, if you're here and you're saying, look, I'm not sure that I'm a Christ follower and this is someone I don't want to deal with, I don't want to have. It's not in the fine print, by the way, in the Bible, this idea of becoming somebody who participates in the Kingdom of God. It is a front and center message that God says, give your life to something bigger than just kind of making your way through this life and hoping you get comfortable at some point. Give your life to something more. That's the Jesus that we read about in the New Testament.
God, we ask today that you would help each of us to seek your Kingdom, to be part of your Kingdom, even if it means sometimes being less about our own Kingdom. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
This transcript was automatically generated. Please excuse errors.
